What Are Friends For?
by prncesscandy
Summary: Reyna needs some help dealing with her wild hair, and Annabeth gets caught up in the middle of it. Throw in a few gay feelings in the mix and you've got yourself extreme frustration.


Warning: This chapter contains mentions of school, family, and a lot of pda.

Alright so I said I was going to write something for the pjofemslash weeks and this is (obviously) for reynabeth week (which happens to be in the same week as my birthday so double the fun yo)

Did I ever tell you how mad I am that most fics on the reynabeth tag are either slash fics with a little bit of femslash or angst? bc I am so mad at that

But anyways enjoy this fic yeah

xxxxxx

"Do I have to?"

Annabeth struggled with untangling the chord of the strange device while biting her lip in frustration. Reyna sighed and sat down on the bed, seeing as if she tried to help her friend, she'd probably just make it worst.

"Sorry, but you're my only hope." She replied, taking her necklace off. She figured it would be easier to straighten her wild hair if it wasn't in the way. "Jason has a game today, Piper isn't allowed to be close to my head while holding heat tools anymore, and Drew's not in town today."

"And you couldn't just do it yourself?" The blonde asked, pulling the cord at random places and hoping it would help. "Not that I mind helping you or anything, but it's just that I have a feeling you'd be better at this than I am."

Reyna shook her head. "You don't know my hair. I'd take hours if I was the one trying to straighten it."

She, for one, thought completely straight hair didn't fit her at all, specially if it wasn't pulled back. It served to hide her face and made her look "less threatening and a little bit sweeter", according to her dad. She didn't enjoy wearing her hair like that, but the first thing her father said after announcing to the family that they had been invited to a dinner party at his editor's house was "I hope you girls dress up nice for this."

It was no secret her father didn't exactly enjoy the fact that she and Hylla prefered the archery club and sparring practise to practically anything else, but Reyna could deal with all the passive ways in which he expressed his disappointment as long as she still had an allowance.

So, yeah, maybe she was just doing this because she wanted to buy a new phone and needed a little financial help, but could anyone really blame her?

"I'm starting to regret agreeing to this." Her friend announced, finally being able to untangle the cord. "Where can I plug this in?"

The brunette pointed at the plug next to her nightstand. "Yeah well it's not my fault you said yes. And you have to brush hair before you straighten it, you know." She added as she noticed Annabeth was about to turn the device on.

"Can't you do that yourself?" The other girl complained.

Reyna shot her a daring look, the type of look that she usually shot people when she won a competition, one that she especially loved to direct at Annabeth, seeing as the blonde was as competitive (if not more) as she was. "I could. " She smirked. "But hey, in for a penny, in for a pound."

The blonde snorted and rolled her eyes, and Reyna could hear the implied 'Screw you.' that came with the action. "I could beat you up for that."

"I'd like to see that." She was aware that if the two of them actually fought, the other girl had a pretty big chance of winning. She had seen Annabeth throwing a few punches before, and she remembered making a mental note of never getting on her bad side. "Hey, what are you doing?"

Her friend had picked up the hairbrush that lay on the vanity and was making her way towards the bed where the brunette was sitting. Reyna held out her hand. "I was kidding." She stated, stuttering a bit in the process. "I'll do it, give me the brush."

Annabeth, however, pushed her friend's hand away gently and climbed onto the bed, settling herself behind Reyna. "I'm on it, don't worry." She said softly, running her hands through the girl's hair.

See, there was a reason why Annabeth hadn't been her first option to come over and help her fix her hair. She was one of her best friends, and the type of person who wouldn't mind to waste an afternoon helping someone, especially if she was close to that person. Even not knowing much about hair styling, she was certain the blonde knew more about it than Jason, whom she doubted even owned a comb, but still, Reyna had asked Jason to do her the favour first, cursing after learning he wasn't available.

It was one thing to be with Annabeth when they were with other people, to tease her when she occasionally picked her and Bianca up from school so they could walk to the sports club together, to talk to her casually while Leo was telling Piper a joke in the background. This was different.

This was them alone in her bedroom, the only sound being the traffic they could hear through the open window, the blonde slowly moving her fingers like a comb before starting to brush Reyna's hair, grasping her shoulder with her free hand. The brunette was leaning back against Annabeth, and she could feel the warmth of her body on her back. It wasn't that she didn't want to be like that, because it felt good, and to be honest, she had noticed the jumps and flips her heart did when she was around her friend a long time ago ago, the problem was that she had no idea what to do about it. There were some moments when she felt like Annabeth could feel the same way, but she always felt like she read too much into those, and even if she didn't, what was she going to do anyways? Ask her best friend out on a date, when she wasn't even sure if she liked girls?

Most of the time, she ignored her feelings whenever she was around the blonde and looked way too much into them when she wasn't, and that was enough for not worrying too much about Annabeth finding out about her crush and their friendship fading away.

Alright, so maybe Piper was right. She _did_ overthink things.

"Are you okay?" Reyna was startled out of her thoughts when her friend broke the silence that had settled in between them. The brunette noticed Annabeth was looking at her on the vanity mirror in front of them.

"Yeah." She replied quickly. "Yeah, why?"

Her friend shrugged. "You weren't talking, and you usually never shut up unless you're thinking about something."

"Ah." She hoped the other girl didn't pick up on the heat that suddenly seemed to spread from her body. "No, I'm fine."

Annabeth didn't reply to that, instead continuing to work on her friend's hair. It was interesting how gentle she was, pulling with just the right strength. Reyna didn't really understand how she managed it, seeing as she hurt herself by accident countless times while she was brushing her own hair. If she weren't so nervous she was sure she'd be humming from comfort.

"Are you falling asleep on me?" The blonde teased, placing the brush next to them. Reyna mentally frowned. She wished Annabeth would have taken a little more time with that.

"Shut up." She stretched her arms in front of her while arching her back- she felt lazy enough to blow the dinner party off and go to bed instead, but she wasn't going to do that. "The straightener takes a few minutes to heat up, so we'll have to wait before you can use it." She felt the other girl move behind her, so she assumed she was going to turn the straightener on. Instead, Annabeth sat down, as opposed to being on her knees for the added height.

"You have to turn it on for it to start heating up, you know." Was what Reyna meant to say, but it came out more like a questioning grunt. Whatever it was that her friend was doing, it was the last thing that she needed.

"Let me try something." Annabeth respondend, putting her hands on the other girl's shoulders and sitting up a little straighter. She then placed her fingers on the sides of Reyna's head and pulled it back just a bit.

Alright, now she definitely felt like she was going to start humming. The blonde was giving her a scalp massage while Reyna sat between her legs, hands balled up in fists because she wasn't quite sure what to do with them. She wanted to lay back and relax, but she sat straight as an arrow, careful as not to touch Annabeth too much, even though the blonde wasn't making it easy, placing herself as close to her friend as possible. Reyna wanted to speak, ask her what she was doing, why she was doing it, tell her to say something so that her own short breaths weren't so loud, but she didn't trust herself to open her mouth.

"Do you want me to stop?" Was the only thing that Annabeth did say, a few minutes after she started. She stopped moving her hands against her scalp for a bit, running her hands through her long, dark hair instead.

"No." Reyna heard herself say. "You're good at this."

Ah. There it was. The conversation was missing an awkward moment in which she said something that you're not supposed to say to friends, something that made her want to punch herself for forgetting boundaries and that would probably cause an uneasy mood to raise up. She was certain that she was blushing, and hoped to god Annabeth didn't notice.

If she did notice, she didn't care. She simply moved her hands back up to continue her massage without a word. Reyna would be over analyzing her actions had she not been focused on the steady beat of Annabeth's heart she could feel on her back. With time, the blonde moved her hands to her neck, and then to her shoulders, massaging with her knuckles. It hurt, but it was a good kind of pain that made her sigh. She stopped keeping the sounds from coming , too, as it was already obvious she was enjoying herself way too much for someone who was getting a massage from her friend.

When her friend's hands finally stopped moving, Reyna wanted nothing more than to lay down on her bed and taking a long nap, possibly pulling the blonde down with her. Instead, she stretched her neck and let out a long sigh. "Where did you learn to do that?"

"A cousin of mine is a beautician." Annabeth rested her head on Reyna's left shoulder, and the other girl finally had a chance to see her face. Besides the glow on her cheeks, she looked just like she did on any other day. "I used to help him study, and I guess I picked up a few things."

She wanted to come up with something clever to say, possibly something to lighten the mood a bit, but she couldn't think of anything. All she could muster was an "Oh."

The blonde now had a small grin on her face, and she was looking down. Reyna assumed she was looking at her hands, that were still balled up into fists, as she still had no idea what to do with them.

"Did you like it?"

Her heart nearly flew out of her mouth. If there was ever a question that couldn't be answered in an even remotely heterosexual manner, it was that one. If she replied with a "no", they'd both know she was lying, but there was no platonic way to say yes. It hit her that she could answer with a "maybe" and a smirk, fueling their uncountable competitions more than anything else.

She had decided that was what she was going to do when she turned her head to look at Annabeth, and the girl was much closer than she expected her to be. She tried looking at her eyes, but the blonde was also looking at hers, so she tried looking at her lips, which wasn't much better, so she tried looking away, but she didn't because she frankly didn't want to. If one of them didn't say something soon, this was going to get awkward fast. Reyna open her mouth to speak, hoping that she was able to actually smirk at the end (not doing so would make her look cold, she thought), but before she could talk, Annabeth's lips were pressed against her own.

She felt like her heart was going to burst, she didn't understand what had happened, she hadn't planned any of this, why did Annabeth kiss her, what was she going to do,-

**Annabeth kissed her. **

She quickly pulled away. "Wait, what?"

The blonde had a nervous expression on her face, her eyes wide, and when she spoke, she tripped over her own words. "I thought that you- I mean I- sorry- don't- I'm sorry." Reyna had to grab her wrist for Annabeth to stop talking, take a short breath, and say "I thought you wanted to-"

"I did." She interrupted, not being able to keep it in and cursing herself for not letting the other girl talk. "I'm sorry, go on."

"Wait- you do?" She exclaimed, her face lighting up. Her look of joy was quickly replaced with one of confusion. "Then why did you…?"

Reyna blushed, knowing there was no way of twisting the truth. She moved herself so that she could face the other girl. "I was… surprised."

"Surprised?" Annabeth sported a playful tone. "Alright. Good kind of surprised or bad kind of surprised?"

"Which one do you think?" She spat, avoiding eye contact. The blonde was messing with her.

The other girl snorted. "You like me."

Reyna looked up to face the smug grin she had on her face. Again, all ideas of possible clever comebacks left her and she settled with "Shut up."

"You," Annabeth insisted, moving her body closer to the brunette's. "like me." She cupped the girl's face, holding it so that Reyna was making direct contact with her.

"Yeah, well, don't think I'm going to go easy on you because of that. I'm still going to beat you at basketball next friday." She replied, trying to shake her head out of Annabeth's grip.

She managed to do it, and the blonde's grin grew a little bigger. She was probably going to counter her comment with a promise to score more points or something, but Reyna didn't let her, leaning in fast and kissing her like she had been wanting to for a long time.

Okay, so maybe she hadn't kissed anyone since middle school, but Reyna thought she was doing just fine. She was a bit self conscious about her kisses, seeing as she didn't know what to do and there was really no way to practise it, but for the time being, she just did what she felt like doing. She let Annabeth deepen their kiss while Reyna pulled at her waist, trying to get the girl as close to her as possible. The blonde's hands were just as nice when she was occupied, she discovered, as they moved from cupping her face to sliding down her arms, to pressing against her back and playing with her hair.

Annabeth herself was a good kisser, and the brunette kept moving her head at different angles, trying to figure out what worked better. At one point, Reyna slowed the kiss and turned into small pecks, fully intending to go back to their original state; Annabeth, however, was having none of it, and pulled the girl from the collar of her blouse with a little too much strength, causing her to fall on her back on the bed, with Reyna following and landing on top of her. The brunette took one look at Annabeth's startled, flustered, lipstick stained face and couldn't help the laughter that followed.

"Oh, screw you." The blonde said as Reyna hid her face by pressing it against her neck. "And stop, that tickles."

She got up, sitting down next to the girl, and managed to turn her laughter into a giggle. "Sorry, sorry." She laughed again. "Okay, that was the last time, I swear."

"Funny." Annabeth sat up herself. From her tone of voice, Reyna figured she was trying to act angry, but the smile on her face gave her away.

"Funny how eager you were." She commented, earning herself a glare.

"Right, if you want to talk about eagerness, I have to tell you a few things about yourself." The blond replied, locking eyes with Reyna.

Alright, so pretend heterosexuality had nothing on making out with your best friend, Reyna learnt. She also learnt that Annabeth gave really good massages. Both good pieces of information. However there was still something she definitely had to know.

"So, you like me." She affirmed. The other girl raised her eyebrows.

"Are we doing this again?"

"No." Reyna replied. "I mean, maybe. I just wanted to know- how much do you like me?"

Annabeth raised her eyebrows even more, and the brunette could feel her face turning red.

"I mean- do you like me enough to- I don't know- start dating or something?" She spat out, hiding her face with her hand. She wasn't good under pressure.

"Oh." Annabeth smiled, which was probably a good sign. "You scared me for a moment there." Reyna had to smile at that, but it quickly turned into a straight line. What if she said no? What if this whole thing had been a mistake? What if they couldn't get their friendship back after this? What if- "And yeah, I think I might like you enough for that. If you're up for it."

"You-okay." She cursed herself for her incapability of forming full sentences today.

"What? Were you surprised?"

"Real mature."

"Whatever." Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Listen, not that I'm not enjoying this or anything, but it's getting late and you still need to get your hair straightened."

Reyna had actually forgotten about that entirely, but she wasn't about to say that out loud. "Right. Go turn it on." The blonde did as she was told, getting up,walking over to the nightstand and pushing the 'on' button. "But, Annabeth." The girl turned her head to look at Reyna. "It still needs a couple of minutes to heat up." "Oh, screw you."


End file.
